Nvidia is reportedly in talks to invest in Perplexity at a valuation north of $30 billion, according to The Information. That’s a jump of more than 50 percent from the AI search company’s last funding round just a year ago. The numbers behind that leap tell a story: Perplexity’s annualized revenue has tripled from $250 million to over $750 million, fueled in part by Perplexity Computer, an AI agent built for automated tasks. Agentic systems burn through tokens at a much higher rate than simple chat interfaces, and that consumption is showing up directly in the company’s top line.
Nvidia has had its eye on Perplexity for a while. The chipmaker previously considered an acqui-hire to absorb Perplexity’s technology and engineering staff, sources told the outlet. That didn’t happen, but the relationship has deepened anyway. In March, Perplexity joined Nvidia’s Nemotron Coalition, an effort to promote open AI models as a counterweight to Chinese development efforts. Perplexity has raised more than $1.7 billion to date, and CEO Aravind Srinivas has floated an IPO around 2028, CNBC reported earlier.
The investment would cement Nvidia’s position as one of the AI industry’s most aggressive financial backers. The company has struck similar deals with Poolside, Groq at a $20 billion valuation, and Enfabrica at $900 million. The pattern is hard to miss: Nvidia writes a check, the portfolio company turns around and buys Nvidia chips, and a meaningful chunk of that investment flows right back as revenue. It’s a flywheel that has drawn criticism from some quarters but shows no signs of slowing.
What makes this deal interesting is the timing. Perplexity is competing directly with Google and OpenAI in the search and answer-engine space, and agentic AI is emerging as the next battleground. If Perplexity’s revenue really is tied to token consumption from autonomous agents, then Nvidia has a front-row seat to one of the clearest signals yet of where AI compute demand is heading. The question is whether a $30 billion valuation holds up when the hype around AI agents inevitably meets the reality of deployment costs.
